1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a development and manufacturing/sales system for a product produced through many procedures by multiple companies, and to a production method for the same. More particularly, the present invention relates to a production system and a production method for a product, such as a composite electronic equipment, which is assembled from element groups consisting of a plurality of members, and relates to a system in which technical cooperation, and product manufacturing and sales among multiple companies can be performed efficiently.
2. Description of the Related Art
In personal computers, portable telephones and other information processing devices and information communications processing devices, technological innovation is fast, and the lifecycle of a product is becoming shorter. At the heart of the technological innovations are higher performance of semiconductor products represented by the microprocessor (MPU) which has been achieved by miniaturization processing technologies, and higher performance of the operating systems and other software, which has been enabled by the increased performance of the semiconductor products. However, in order to deal with everything from the technical development to the design, manufacture and sales of semiconductor products within one company, large investments are required in terms of development costs, human resources, manufacturing equipment and the like, and this accompanies a significant risk.
Given these circumstances, the organization of manufacturers who manufacture and sell semiconductor products is changing toward specialization along the semiconductor manufacturing processes. Specifically, there are design houses which only do design, foundries which only do the pre-processes of the semiconductor manufacturing, and assembly houses which only do the post-processes, and the like. These companies supplement each other to thus shorten the product cycle, and thus occupy an important position in an environment of intensified competition in product development, manufacturing, marketing, and the like.
With PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) and other such portable information processing devices or information communications devices which are predicted to diffuse even further, there is a need for a higher performance display device to serve as an interface with humans. A typical mode for achieving this is represented by a concept referred to as a “System on panel”, which involves integrating a display portion, an input/output portion, a computational processing portion, a memory portion and the like onto 1 panel (a substrate) to achieve integrated functions, thus attaining not only increased performance but also size and weight reduction of the above-mentioned information processing systems and the information communications systems, so that they can be harmoniously incorporated into people's lifestyles.
In order to develop electronic equipment, which are increasingly large-scale, complex, and higher in performance, in a short amount of time, it is necessary to mutually link such things as: the system design by which the operations as a system are determined; the function and logic design that determines the logical circuitry functions; and the layout design by which the specific wiring patterns are determined, to thereby streamline the whole process.
Approaches for differentiating a company versus other competing companies may include competitive pricing. However, in order to gain a more predominant market share, it is necessary to achieve superior product functionality and superior product performance, and constantly provide new products to the market. Therefore, there is a tendency for the lifecycle of one product to become shorter, and development time becomes shorter as well. In an environment in which the development time is limited, when an attempt is made to make a change to the design at the layout design stage or other downstream stage of the development process, it becomes necessary to start over from the system design and the logical design, which may lead to a failure to meet a designated deadline. Further, it also becomes urgently necessary to apply for and secure patent rights or other industrial property rights for cutting-edge technologies involving higher functionality, higher performance, new manufacturing technique, or the like.